I'm having fun in the craft room this afternoon and this card came together so quickly! I used Bravo Burgundy and Always Artichoke ink and card stock. The flowers are from the Cheep Talk stamp set and the small green centers are from the new Circle Circus stamp set. The greeting is from the new Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set (I'm going to be using this set A LOT!). Hope you like it!

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room: Don't Ask Why

Today's lesson seems quite odd without an explanation because I think the question "Why?" can be an important question to ask a lot of the time. However, today, it was important for me to not ask my intuition why it was drawn to pink pirouette or why it was trying to stamp a little bird in gray for a baby card. Instead I gently asked my internal voice to shhhhh, and just followed what my intuition was saying. This card is the end result. It is in moments like these when I am truly in awe at what can come forth - what you can't imagine - that just pops into being if you follow and trust what your intuition is calling you to do. Now might be the perfect time to ask you internal voice to shhhh and to not ask why and to just follow where you are being led.

The pink background was run through the cuttlebug swiss dot embossing folder on the Big Shot. I used the Cheep Talk stamp set from SU! and stamped the branch in certainly celery - I stamped off once and then stamped the image. The little bird was stamped in going gray. The greeting is from the brand new Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set (finally, a stamp set that has a greeting for just about every occassion!!! yeah!!! You can order it beginning July 1st at my site www.m.stampinup.net). The greeting was stamped in going gray and punched out using the word window punch. I punched the little flower using the trio flower punch with barely banana card stock. I added the pearl center and popped the flower and the greeting up on dimensionals. I hope you like it!

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room: Acknowledge Your Contribution

It's funny how it can be so easy to blame others for whatever situation we are in or for whatever we are upset about. We say things to ourselves like "I can't believe she is making me do this! What a (insert your choice of word here)!" The more difficult thing to do is to step away from blame and acknowledge our contribution - what have we done or not done that has brought us to this place. I realize one of the things I'm really good at NOT doing is saying "no" and by not saying "no" I can find myself in situations that I am angry about and begin to blame everyone. What I need to do is recognize my contribution - it's not about blame - and ask myself if I want to keep contributing in this way. I'm going to work on saying "no" a bit more often :)

Today's card looked fun in my mind, but maybe a bit goofier in reality :) The limited supply challenge was to make a masculine card with limited supplies that we could select from a take-out style menu - quite fun! I used the color spritzer tool with a basic black marker to make the background and punched holes in the whisper white paper with my crop-o-dile and my 1 1/2" circle punch. The boy got a mohawk with a marker :) Hope you like it...and if you don't, it's okay, I think you rock anyway :)

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room: Start Your Day Your Way

It can be so easy to wake up and get right into the grind of the day. It seems that how we start our day can really set the mood for the rest of our day. So today I decided to start my day by creating rather then getting caught up in work. It feels good to honor myself first and then move into the rest of my day.

I decided to make some bright cupcakes for today's challenge. I am really loving the new The More The Merrier hostess set! It is incredibly versatile - you can color it, paper piece it, use just parts of the images...soooo much fun!!!!! Anyway, I'm trying not to eat sweets right now, so I think these cupcakes were my way of trying to get sweets out of my system for the day :) I paper pieced the cupcakes and put some of the pieces up on dimensionals. The white background was run through a texturz plate. The greeting is a combination of 2 different greetings in the stamp set - I took the "so" from one stamp and the word "sweet" from another - I just colored the words I wanted on the stamp with my basic black marker and stamped away! Hope you like it!

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room: When You Are At The End Of Your Rope, Trust There Is A Net And Jump!!!!

It is so nice to be back in the craft room after more planes, trains and automobiles! And yes, I have been feeling lately like I'm at the end of my rope with all of this travel so I am just about ready to jump and to trust that a net will catch me! I know it will be there - the Universe has always provided - all I need is to have faith. I'll let you know if it's a soft landing :)

I kept today's card clean and simple. The background was stamped with the heart image from the More the Merrier. Punched hearts were popped up on dimensionals as were the cut out birds' wings and hearts in the center image. The images were painted in with my aqua painter. Hope you like it.